Drugs
"Shut up!"
Jason groaned, rolling over on the bed. "No, you're just a failure!" Came another yell in the same voice. His mind chugged along, trying to figure out why he was being woken up by whoever this evil pony was. Dash was still as a rock, easily sleeping through the screaming. Jason sighed, running a hoof across her cheek before carefully extracting himself from her hooves.
She always was the selectively awake one, the act of moving her in any way tended to immediately rouse her, and clearly noise didn't. He chuckled, realizing that this was the first time he had managed to leave the bed without waking her. He replaced the blanket over her chest, briefly overcome by how adorable she looked, a slight pout on her face as she seemed to subconsciously realize the lack of Jason's presence. Or all the yelling. It was still cute either way.
He grabbed his saddlebag, tossing it over his back as he walked out of the tent, heading for Shining's. "I didn't do anything wrong!" Came another yell, he assumed from Evening Glory. So she probably needed the full dosage, assuming this wasn't a side effect. He walked in, seeing Tank and Eravel as he looked around, along with a sleeping Shining on one of the upper bunks.
"How does he sleep through this?" He asked the pair. "And why are you here?"
"Shining got us in the middle of the night," Tank replied, yawning, "and made us watch over this basket case." He looked over at the struggling mare. "Where did you even find a changeling?"
"You're taking this well. We were scouting, and I think she's the changeling that broke free from the hive mind. So we're keeping her around to try to find out what's different, and if we can break the hive mind, that's one less thing we have to deal with."
"So she's what all this is resting on?" Tank glanced over at the mare.
"Stop looking at me!" She yelled, her victimized expression turning angry. "You like it, whore!"
"Yeah." Jason replied, realizing how bad things looked. "But I have pills that should work." He paused. "Stay here for a minute, tell me if she says anything important. And don't tell anyone about this, I don't know how they'll react." Eravel nodded, moving a little closer to Evening to get a better look.
Jason turned and left, a little sickened by the self arguing. It just creeped him out. He made his way down the road, which was really just a wide cut that went the length of the camp. He walked back into the tent, keeping quiet even though he knew Dash probably wouldn't wake up. He grabbed a couple of the human odds and ends, mostly useless to Dash or him, and packed them into a box. He grabbed a pencil and wrote across the lid: 'To Scoots, Love, Jason' before walking back outside and continuing down the road. He quickly got to the edge of the flat top of the hill, where there were a few pegasi unloading and loading goods.
"Are any of you going to Ponyville?" He asked, most of the ponies shaking their heads before returning to work.
"I am." One said from beside Jason. He turned and took in the sight of a rather burly looking stallion, covered in various hues of grey.
"Can you take some stuff there for me? I'll make it worth your while..." He tossed over a small bag of bits, watching it land at the pegasus's hooves.
"Or I can just do it for free..."
"Ah, okay then." He floated the bits back over, placing them back in his saddlebag and taking out a few small wooden boxes. "I want you to deliver these to Ferris, which is the blacksmith in Ponyille. Tell him there's a note in one of the boxes on what to do." Jason opened one of them, watching a few things glimmer back, before closing it back up and handing the boxes over.
"Sure thing."
"And set up a return trip, because he'll be sending something back in a while."
"Okay, I can do that. It's a nice break from the usual schedule." He opened the box. "Whoa, what're you going to do with all of this jewelry?"
"It doesn't matter, just get it to the right place, okay?" The pony saluted, and carefully stacked the boxes in with the rest of the stuff. Jason grabbed the cardboard box for Scoots and handed it over to the pony. "Here's another package, but this needs to be delivered to my daughter. It's this big cloud house in the sky, just leave it in the front yard on this pallet so it doesn't fall through. That work?"
"Yeah, of course. I have a pretty large amount of time between getting there and leaving again. And I really don't want to spend a lot of time with my mother-in-law." He chuckled to himself as he took the package and stowed it away.
Jason shared the stallion's chuckle and turned around, slowly making his way back to camp. He finally looked up towards the sun, it was probably nine or so, judging. He figured he'd probably go wake Dash up, then get back to this whole changeling debacle.
He leaned over and picked up a rubber spider off the ground, immediately trying to decide whether to use it on Dash or Shining. He couldn't do it to both of them, that'd just be repetitive. So it was a choice between Dash yelling, or the possibility of Shining screaming like a little girl. Not a very tough choice, he mused.
He walked into his tent, finding Dash already awake. Well, barely. Her face was squished against the pillow as her slitted eyes gazed up at him. He thought that maybe she was still asleep for a moment, before she finally summoned up the strength to move.
"Why did you leave?" She asked, partially scrunching her face into a pouting expression before she appeared to decide that it wasn't worth the energy. Jason sighed and got into bed with her. She perked up immediately, lazily draping an arm over his form and pulling herself closer.
"Five more minutes, then we have to figure out what to do with that changeling." Dash sighed and nodded, understanding the gravity of the situation enough to keep from arguing.
"Was she the one yelling?"
"Yeah, she was arguing with herself."
"You bastard!" Came another yell, followed by some angry sounding growls and mutters.
"I know, I heard."
"And yet you never woke up." He chuckled at her blush. "But it's seriously getting creepy. You have soft fur by the way, I don't really say that enough."
"Aren't you random today."
"Only when I need to be." He brushed his muzzle against hers before drawing back and giving her a kiss. He broke it off after a moment and rolled over, grabbing the pad of paper from his discarded saddlebag. He rolled back over with it, placing it between the two of them and trying to decide what to write. He finally decided on something, and put the pencil to the paper with his magic.
Well, we made it through another battle. Hope you're fine over there. I really miss you Scoots. Jason wiped his eyes, a little bit of moisture starting to collect as he thought about the filly. He passed the pencil and paper over to Dash, and she wrote a couple of words on the paper before handing it back.
"You were pretty good at drawing, why don't you draw something for her?"
"What am I supposed to put on here?"
"I dunno, something she's never seen before."
"I got something better, hold up your hoof." She obliged, and he grabbed the pencil, and started to draw on the bottom of her hoof, covering it with graphite.
She started laughing, and her hoof twitched around. "Aah, Jason! You have no idea how much that tickles."
"Just stop moving so I can finish."
"It's not as--haha--easy as it--mf--looks." He finished with the final edge, carefully going over some of his previous progress to make sure that the print would come out alright. She sighed when he took the pencil away, leaning back to inspect his work. "So we're giving her our hoof prints?"
"It's as much as we can give her. But it looks tangible, and it gives her something to remember us by. So press your hoof there and do me."
She moved her hoof to the paper, planting her hoof and moving it ever so slightly to make sure the pencil lead had rubbed off. She took away her hoof a moment later, smiling at the near perfect mark that had been left. She admired the mark for a moment more before grabbing the pencil and moving it to Jason's outstretched hoof. He immediately pulled back from her touch with a rather unmanly giggle, before taking a straight face again and resolutely returning his hoof to its previous position.
"Not so easy, is it?" She asked with a giggle. He chuckled, continuing to hold his hoof up as she got back to work. He liked to think that he held up better, although towards the end she seemed to be trying to get him to laugh more than to attempting get his hoof covered. Eventually she gave him the go ahead, and he slapped it into the paper, repeating Dash's movements to get the lead to scrape off.
"Looks pretty good, I suppose." He said after taking his hoof away. Now we just have to wait for her to stick a hoof print there. I'm kinda excited, I just want to have something of her, you know, besides this photo." He reached into his saddlebag and pulled it out, ironing out the creases with a hoof. "It's amazing that I can miss her this much."
"Yeah. I know we couldn't have brought her along, but it would've been easier. Although I guess she sounds like she's getting on alright over there. And much as you hate the idea of her being around colts." She shifted in the bed, reaching out a hoof to poke him in the gut. He flinched and poked her back, before relaxing again.
"Either way, your five minutes are up."
"I think your watch is a little fast."
"Oh, you're right. Now your five minutes are up." He shoved her backwards, not really succeeding in doing anything particularly noteworthy. "In my head you went a little further."
"I guess I should be happy that you never succeed at things like this."
"In all fairness it's pretty half-hearted."
"Oh, you say that now."
"I could've used this rubber spider on you woman!" He grabbed the offending object, dangling it in front of her face and narrowing his eyes. "I don't mess around."
"How could you threaten your mare-friend like that?" She asked, putting a hoof across her forehead in a swooning motion.
"Because we have an interesting relationship."
"Remember when I asked if it'd ever be normal?"
"Yeah."
"That was a stupid idea. But I'm glad you didn't turn out as one of those gentlecolts that Rarity wants from Canterlot. Ugh." She shuddered, before rolling over and jumping up out of bed.
"Only a little over the time limit."
"Oh, screw you."
"When?"
"Um, uh. Hmm. I wasn't expecting you to really have a comeback there." She paused. "If that really counts as a comeback."
He rolled out of bed with a chuckle. "Let's assume it does."
"Jason, where's that green thing with all the buttons?"
"The calculator?"
"Yeah, that thing."
"I got a little box together of stuff that was fairly useful to us and sent it to Scoots."
"Like, through one of the pegasi?!"
"Yeah, he was pretty nice about it, why did you think I was going to need a bribe?"
"I guess."
"I did too, but he wouldn't take it."
"Sounds suspicious."
Jason grabbed his saddlebag off the ground, tossing it over his haunches. "When did you become such a cynic?" He asked.
"I'm just following in your footsteps." She took an over exaggerated bow.
He chuckled. "Oh yeah, because me keeping information to myself totally hasn't helped us before."
She walked over and lightly punched his shoulder. "You don't have to act like it was an insult."
"I dunno, I guess I have to be cynical." Dash sighed, letting out a laugh under her breath.
"Aren't there ponies waiting on you?"
"They can't yell at me, I'm their superior."
"I know, but still."
"Yeah, okay Dash. Grab your saddlebag." Jason walked over to the bed and grabbed the pad of paper, quickly returning to his place by the door as he slid it into his saddlebag. Dash walked over and they left, quickly following the occasional yells to Shining's tent. Jason heard some hushed speaking, and looked to his side to see that a few ponies, the two officers included, were whispering amongst themselves, occasionally looking over at the source of the yelling. He really needed to stop that before the changeling let something slip.
He sighed and looked away from the ponies, who he realized were the same ones that had been hovering around the tent yesterday. So that was always good, chances are they wouldn't react well to a changeling in the overall general's tent. But then again, this whole war effort was kinda strange anyway. Would it really be that strange to see another changeling around?
He pushed into the tent, finding that Eravel had swapped places with Shining on the bed. So no rubber spider, he realized with a little disappointment. The general looked tired, and he sipped away at what Jason assumed was a caffeinated beverage.
"How's she holding up?" Jason asked.
"Not too well, I'd say."
"No, no, no!" Evening yelled. "Oh, but I already have!" She continued, her voice turning maniacal.
"I'm going to see if I can get her to take more of these pills, they're normally pretty fast acting, but I guess the 'one pill' idea was being a little too careful." Jason grabbed the pill bottle and shook out a few, before moving over to the mare. She struggled against her restraints for a moment, trying to get away from what appeared to be a fixed point on the wall. He waved a hoof in front of her face, getting no reaction. He sighed and put his fore hooves on the bed, before moving them over to her shoulders.
"Snap out of it!" He yelled, and by some miraculous chance her attention shifted. "Take these." He handed her the pills, which she quickly chewed up. Shining floated over a glass of water, which Jason handed to the mare. Jason took a few steps back, waiting for her to say the first word.
"Who are you? Wait, let me guess! You're...... 37-T?"
"No, I'm Jason. We met yesterday..."
"Oh, the guy with the chopped up fabric clothing. What was that supposed to be?"
"Camouflage. Now listen..."
"Why didn't you just become extra hairy with green fur?"
"Because I had to carry stuff."
"Oooooh, stuff..." Jason looked over at Dash, and she shrugged in response.
"Can you tell us anything about the hive?" He asked, although it was probably a lost cause.
The mare's face went from happy to disgusted. "I never liked it there, nope nope nope! It's better out here, where there're plants and green things. The desert was boring."
"How did you leave the hive mind?" Dash asked from behind Jason, picking up a couple of apples from Shining's desk and biting into the first one.
"I dunno, I'd always ask other drones if they wanted to go with me, but they were always reciting protocol, blah blah blah. That's when I came up with my name! For some reason though, I figured something out about the hive and then I didn't want to tell anyone, so I kept my name and stuff a secret." She sighed, her expression becoming solemn. "But I remember I was on my way to Canterlot, and my mind just started to buzz, and pretty soon I couldn't tell my own thoughts apart from all of the drones." Evening went silent.
"And is that when Chrysalis found out?"
"Yeah." Wow, Jason thought. Mental note: medicine works fast on changelings. "She started talking to me, and I knew that she was trying to keep me from being different. But I slipped, I said something I c-c-c-couldn't h-have pos-sibly k-known from the hive m-mind a-alone. And-- SHUT UP!! And she w-was grilling me as the shiel-ld blew, up until I found that pony, Lyre. Wait, it was Lyra. Anyway, I was arguing with her in front of Lyra before Chrysalis went silent for a while and I saved her. Then I was blown away like the rest." She took a deep breath, the bindings creaking slightly.
"So you've been thinking for yourself since as long as you can remember?"
"Yeah, and I w-wasn't smart for a while either, the simplest things were stumping me. Not that I'm much of a genius now though." She paused, taking a few quick breaths. "After I tell you this, you aren't going to kill me, are you?" She looked over, her eyes flickering between green pony irises and the blue changeling compound eye for a few seconds. "Cuz your buddy over there's really been sending me a lot of love."
"She sure is filling, huh." He smirked over at Dash, feeling the flow of love from her waver slightly. "It's weird finally talking to another changeling."
"I know, right? You're the first one besides Chrysalis that's actually kept a conversation going. It's so cool! And you're not even part of the hive, so I can ask you lots of things!"
"Wait, how did you know he wasn't part of the hive?" Dash asked. "He never said that."
"Well I dunno, I didn't see him there, and I pretty much remember everyone there." She rolled her eyes and scoffed, as if Dash had said something completely ignorant.
"How many changelings were in the hive then?" Dash rebutted, crossing her arms with a hint of annoyance.
"Before the attack, there were thirty one thousand four hundred and eighty three changelings in the hive, not including recent hatchings, of course."
"And you remember all of them."
"Well yeah, they all look really different. I mean, their leg holes aren't even in the same place!" She started laughing, cutting herself off when she realized Dash didn't understand the joke. "Sorry, I just haven't been able to think this clearly since a few months ago, and there's no way this'll last forever." She paused. "Could you untie me, at least a little bit?"
Jason looked back towards the other ponies, and Shining gave a small nod before sucking down some more tea and refilling the cup from a nearby kettle. Dash walked over and helped Jason get a few of the knots undone, and helped the mare to her feet. She looked down at her still exposed foreleg and giggled before covering it back up. "Oh, sloppy me..." she said, tapping the hoof against the ground a few times as if to check that the disguise wouldn't fall off.
The mare stretched, her last position managing to get Shining to choke on his tea as he briefly checked up on the situation. Jason chuckled at the still spluttering stallion, while keeping a wary eye on the changeling. Dash misinterpreted his watching and punched him in the side.
"You're supposed to at least be subtle!"
"I'm just making sure she doesn't try anything, I already told you that you never need to get jealous."
"But you make it so easy..."
"Why do you care?" The changeling asked. "It's not like you're *gasp* she's your mare friend?"
"Yeah, I thought we went over this."
"So what you're saying is, you got her to love you, without any magical aid?"
Jason took a sip of water. "Mhm..."
"Wow, I could never do that, I get too distracted. Don't you ever want to go bang some other ponies?" There were some more choking noises from Shining.
Dash could swear that his chitin took on a slight reddish tinge. "No, I'm not in a relationship just for sex, that's not how it works."
"But she knows. You don't have to pretend to be another pony."
"That doesn't matter, I wouldn't just leave her for another pony. I wouldn't even think about it. I'm not here for sex."
"I don't think I follow."
"I wouldn't expect you to. Now listen, we're going to walk around for a while, so you can stretch your legs, okay? We'll see how long it takes for the medicine to start to run out, and then set up a schedule. It should last a while, whether it's a day or a week, I'm not so sure."
"As long as I can think, I'm fine with anything." She formed some wings and started towards the door. Jason and Dash ran after her, not wanting to let the changeling out of sight.
"We'll be back in a while, Shining." He nodded, giving a slight cough as Jason left.
"This is great!" The mare yelled, turning a few heads. She quieted down. "No facial ticks, no voices..." She scampered forwards, zig zagging around in her joy.
"Glad to see she's enjoying it." Jason said. "But what were we going to do with her after all this?"
"Like when?"
"Well, we can't keep her here forever, and I'm not going to leave her to fend for herself."
"Just send her to Ponyville, she at least knows Lyra."
"Yeah, but I can't figure out to what degree." Jason replied, scratching his chin.
"Well it can't possibly be that much, they were only with each other for a few hours, there's probably a good amount of romanticism involved here."
"Look at you, Dash, using the big words."
"Would you rather I use 'glorified'?"
"Either way, I guess. Doesn't matter to me." The changeling suddenly stopped in front of them. Maybe two pills was better, he was beginning to think the insanity balance had tipped to the other side.
"I want food! Is there any food around here? I haven't eaten for almost two weeks."
"But you don't need food." Dash said.
She shrugged. "I like the taste."
"Good thing we're close, then." Dash replied with a slight eye roll, leading them down the street and into another large tent. It was probably shorter than Shining's, but it extended much further back. Dash sat down on one of the long tables, waiting for Jason to join her as the changeling fluttered around the tent and discovered its secrets.
"I swear, she rivals Pinkie Pie for energy." Dash said.
"I think I gave her a little to many pills. I think two's the limit." The disguised pegasus landed on one of the benches and quickly sat down as a pony came out with a few dishes balanced on a tray on his back. He quickly doled them out to the ponies, bland army food, as Jason had expected. Apparently it was lunch food, there was a biscuit with what he assumed was vegetarian gravy, and chile with huge amounts of beans.
Jason shifted into Dash, receiving a look from the changeling as he dug in, impressed that the chile tasted like, well, chile. He looked over at the changeling, who was eating her food rather politely, as much as Jason had expected that she'd just scarf it down. She hadn't changed though...
"You taste this, right?"
"Yeah, why wouldn't I?"
"Because I have to mimic a real pony to taste things."
"Why not just mimic her taste buds?"
"Cuz I don't know how." Her jaw dropped.
"How can you not know partial transformations?"
"I dunno, I wasn't part of the hive, remember?"
"Yeah, okay. I'll teach you some time. It doesn't work in changeling form either way, just so you know."
"I figured that much."
"There's probably a lot you don't know."
"Chrysalis said that to me as well."
"You talked with Chrysalis?!?!"
"Well, kinda, she possessed you and spoke to me that way."
"Oh, that explains the mental break."
"Yeah, I guess." Jason scraped the last of his biscuit along the bottom of the bowl, absorbing the last of the chile. He kinda missed getting full normally, whenever he did anything that needed power or energy, Dash's love took a while to fill him back up.
"Well I'll tell you what. I'll teach you about changeling stuff if you teach me about pony stuff in return, math, science, I don't really care that much."
Jason smiled. "Sure." He reached across the table and shook her hoof.
"Tomorrow?" She asked.
"Sure, so long as we don't get called into battle." He gestured between himself and Dash.
"Cool!" She got up and ran outside, leaving Jason and Dash to catch up.
_________________________________________________________________
Jason carried Evening Glory into Shining's tent, carefully laying her onto the bed and pulling the blanket over her form before loosely tying the ropes around her. How she'd managed to find stuff for them to do for the rest of the day was beyond him, but it had at least been fun, a nice interlude to their normally busy lives.
"The scouting parties got back a little while ago." Shining started, "One of them hit some pretty heavy resistance down south, apparently in a few hills. Around here. He pointed to a map.
"So when do we move out?" Dash asked, tracing the distance between the camp and the hills with a hoof.
"I was thinking tomorrow or the next day, if there's any huge number of griffins, we're going to need a lot of troops and a good strategy. So we'll see." Dash nodded, continuing to look over the map. "How's she doing?" Shining asked a few seconds later, pointing over at Evening.
Jason shrugged. "Alright, I guess. She was pretty hyper until she just kinda fell asleep in the grass a ways from here. She seems pretty normal though, as much as you could consider a changeling normal."
"There was a lot of talk about sex and relationships. Pretty one sided talk, as it turned out." Dash added. "It was strange, to say the least."
"I would suppose so."
"Is it alright if we go get some shuteye?" Jason asked. "It's dusk, so I just kinda figured..."
"Yeah, go ahead. Keep your strength up. You're going to need it." Jason and Dash both saluted, before turning to leave, hearing a slight murmur from the bed.
They navigated to their tent rather quickly, almost oozing into the bed out of exhaustion. Jason shifted into Alternis before climbing in; it had become more of a random thing on whether he was in pony or changeling form, and it usually just came down to Dash's comfort. She didn't look as comfortable resting her head on some of his chitin, for good reason. And he could care less about how well he slept. Not that it seemed to matter much either way, but still.
Dash rolled over and wrapped her hooves around his chest, resting the ends of them on his wings as she usually did. Wings, man, just a little change in the placement of her hooves could mean something completely different. It's not like he knew anything about what certain things meant, but he figured that what she was doing right now was more of a closeness thing. Anytime Dash put her hooves in the middle of his wings just made him feel content, whether that was because it was her specifically or just some weird response engineered into his anatomy. He'd have to ask.
He felt her pull herself closer, and he leaned down to kiss her on the top of the head, hearing a slight coo in response. He smiled, before his muscles started to relax and his drowsiness caught up with him the rest of the way. His eyelids drooped, and he seemed to fall asleep in a heartbeat.